Jordan v. Town Of South Boston

• Decision Date: 20 March 1924
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: JORDAN. v. TOWN OF SOUTH BOSTON. BANKS. v. COMMONWEALTH ex rel. TOWN OF SOUTH BOSTON. GERST. v. SAME.

122 S.E. 265

JORDAN.

v.TOWN OF SOUTH BOSTON.

BANKS.

v.COMMONWEALTH ex rel.

TOWN OF SOUTH BOSTON. GERST.

v.SAME.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

March 20, 1924.

Error to Circuit Court, Halifax County.

Three prosecutions for violations of the prohibition ordinance of the Town of South. Boston, one by said Town against one Jordan, the other two by the Commonwealth, on the relation of said town, one against one Banks, the other against one Gerst. From judgments of conviction in the circuit court on appeals from convictions before the mayor of said town, said defendants bring error. Reversed.

M. B. Booker and Wm. Leigh, Jr., both of Halifax, for plaintiffs in error.

Jas. S. Easley, of Halifax, and Frank L. McKinney, of South Boston, for defendants in error.

BURKS, J. There is one question which is common to these cases, the answer to which is decisive of the result in each. Did the mayor of the town of South Boston have jurisdiction to hear and determine the case?

Section 27 of the prohibition act (Acts 1918, c. 388) confers on all cities and townsin the state the right and power to pass ordinances embracing such provisions of the state prohibition law as are applicable, Pursuant to this power the town of South Boston "passed an ordinance in the language of the prohibition law."

Section 25 of the prohibition law is in the following language:

"Enforcement of City Ordinance; Territory Contiguous to Cities.—Nothing in this act shall be construed as conflicting with the jurisdiction of any mayor or police justice in the enforcement of city ordinances, prohibiting the manufacture, sale or distribution of ardent spirits. For the enforcement of such ordinances, the mayor or police justice shall have jurisdiction over the territory contiguous to the city within three miles of the city limits, provided said three-mile limit does not interfere with the jurisdiction of the mayor or police justice of any other city or town, and where there is less than six miles between any city or town and another city or town, the jurisdiction of the mayor or police justice of either city or town shall extend to one-half the distance between said cities and towns.

"In any prosecution before a mayor or police justice, the commissioner of prohibition shall be notified by the said mayor or justice, in time to attend said trial, and the commissioner, his deputies and inspectors, shall have the same power in respect to such cases that he has in cases before the circuit court."

South Boston is an incorporated town, and not a city. Section 8 of its charter (Acts 1887-88, c. 52, p. 54) is as follows:

"The jurisdiction of the corporate authorities of the said town in criminal matters, and for imposing and collecting a license tax on all shows, performances and exhibitions, shall extend one mile beyond the corporate limits of the said town."

The offenses charged were committed more than one mile and less than three miles from the corporate limits of the town of South Boston. The plaintiffs in error, respectively, were tried before the mayor of said town for violation of its prohibition ordinance, and were convicted; and on appeal to the circuit court the same punishment was inflicted by the jury in each case as that imposed by the mayor, and judgment in accordance with the verdict of the jury was rendered in each case.

The plaintiffs in error insist that section 25 of the prohibition law, hereinbefore quoted, applies to cities only; that South Boston is not a city, but a town; that it is not within six miles of any other town or city; and that the three-mile extension of jurisdiction is not applicable to that town. If the three-mile limit is not applicable' to the town of South Boston, then the plaintiffs in error were wrongly convicted, and the judgments complained of must be reversed.

The correct interpretation of the statute is difficult, and, recognizing its great importance, we have given it the serious consider ation its importance demands. The people of the state have been zealous in enforcing prohibition. They have through their Legislature enacted stringent laws on the subject, and have from time to time amended these laws and made them more stringent, or extended their operation to cover new situations, or conditions. They have been afraid, however, to intrust their enforcement to justices of the peace, who would otherwise normally have jurisdiction in most cases, and have taken jurisdiction away from them and conferred it on the courts of record. The mayors of towns generally have only the jurisdiction of justices within the corporate limits and for one mile beyond. The act of 1918 did not enlarge this jurisdiction as to state offenses, but allowed the cities and towns to adopt ordinances of their own embracing such provisions of the state law as were applicable. This act was still further enlarged in 1922 by giving to the cities and towns the tines imposed for violation of such ordinances, and in other respects. But section 25, extending the jurisdiction of cities to three miles beyond the city limits, was not changed by the act of 1922, nor have mayors of towns, or justices of the peace, ever been given jurisdiction of offenses under the statute against the state. Whether the right to make ordinances extending over the three mile limit is applicable to towns or not is the question we have to decide.

Whether the rule of construction be strict or liberal, the statute should have a fair construction in the light of its enactment, and, if the legislative intent can be gathered from its language, it should be given effect. The territory over which a court is to exercise jurisdiction is a matter to be fixed by statute, and if an act is an offense if committed in one place, but not an offense if committed at another, then it is incumbent on the prosecutor to allege and prove that the act was done at the former place. If it is doubtful the prosecution must fail. Compare Min-turn v. Larue. 23 How. (64 U. S.) 435, 16 L. Ed. 574; Cool v. Commonwealth, 94 Va. 799, 26 S. E. 411.

A municipal corporation is a mere local agency of the state and has no powers beyond the corporate limits except such as are clearly and unmistakably delegated by the Legislature. Whiting v. West Point, 88 Va. 905, 14 S. E. 698, 15 L. R. A. 860, 29 Am. St. Rep. 750; Washington, A. & Mt. V. Ry. Co. v. City Council of Alexandria, 98 Va. 344, 36 S. E. 385.

"The reasonable presumption is that the state has granted in clear and unmistakable terms all it has designed to grant at all." Coo-ley, Const. Lim. (7th Ed.) 271.

We do not question the power of the Legislature to grant to towns police powers to the three-mile limit, but are concernedonly with the question whether or not it has done so by the act under consideration. There may be good reasons why it should have done so, and no good reasons why it should not have done so. It may be a mere casus omissus, but if so this court cannot supply the omission.

In Black on Interpretation of Laws, at page 57, it is said:

"If the statute is sought to be applied to a case or object which is omitted from its terms, but which appears to be within the obvious purpose or plan of the statute, and so to have been omitted merely by inadvertence or accident, still the courts are not at liberty to add to the language of the law; and it must be held that the Legislature intended to omit the specific case, however improbable that may appear in connection with the general policy of the statute. Where the words of a statute, in their primary meaning, do not expressly embrace the case before the court, and there is nothing in the context to attach a different meaning to them capable of expressly embracing it, the court cannot extend...